


between the shadow and the soul

by ashleykay



Category: Hey Arnold!
Genre: Character Study, Divorce, F/M, Gen, Separations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-08-15 23:25:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8077381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashleykay/pseuds/ashleykay
Summary: Thursday was deep and hot and when she woke it was to sticky wet sheets and a feeling that the world had not changed.





	1. the world is burning

**Author's Note:**

> Rewrite of a fic I wrote in 2009 and am cleaning up and hoping to continue.

Thursday was deep and hot and when she woke it was with a start and a breath and sticky wet sheets.

Sixteen did not bring with it any revelation, it was as simple as waking up and realizing, suddenly and quietly that she was nothing but a day, a year and a time older than she was only seconds ago.

The poetic part of her, that collided so easily with the cynic, knew that this was as true of yesterday as it was in that moment. sixteen didn't stop the ache or the wonder or the fear that pushed her deeper toward being a menace. She simply woke up. And knew, that preteen and childhood had left her behind for a different category and more trouble.

She felt her hips and pressed her fingers across each curve and valley, hoping that with the new day, she would find a newer self. A better one. That it would be as simple as looking out into the great wide open and knowing what lay in front of her.

She sighed and rolled to her side, breathed harder, Dr. Bliss had told her that change came with both time and effort. The time she had, but the effort was harder to come by. She forced back a scowl, licked her lips and pushed herself out of bed.

The mirror that hung on the yellow wall showed that she looked as much like twelve as she had a few years ago.

Her face was gawky at best and her eyes, blue and old, still held bitterness and the smallest hint of sorrow, she was arms and legs, and babyish curves still lingered like hope on her hips and cheeks. She felt, despite her age, too much like a child.

But her mind didn't feel that young. Wasn't she, she thought, so much older than the rest, with her constant grimace and ongoing pride, and secret thoughts. She shook her head and focused on the day. There was school and Bob and her appointment with Dr. Bliss. There was a dinner with Phoebe to look forward to and maybe, if she were lucky, Arnold would remember.

She didn't sigh at the thought of Arnold's name. Not anymore, there was no waxing on poetically for her anymore, no secret locket kept at her heart, no great volume of work she could carry with her that threatened to spill thoughts kept privately. She simply loved him. Carried only the thought of him, and it was better that way, she told herself. Because loving was enough. Some day, maybe she guessed, it was a Wednesday because they were the hardest earned, in her eleventh year had taught her that.

Just like her twelfth year had taught her that she was who she was. And even if she didn't bully or name call or throw a spitball, she was still a born fighter. She was, as Grandma Gene said, fire and sparks. Nothing could make her nice, and she found she liked that. Nice was to simple, nice was for the boring few who could never learn that niceness was not kindness or compassion, it was a fake smile for formality or a laugh at a rotten joke. Helga G. Pataki, could love and hate and care, but she would never do it nicely.

And she was more the happier for it.

Her room was yellow and the day was bright and she thought that might be enough.

Even if the house outside her room smelled of liquor and fruit.

She didn't bother with a sigh or a thought about how it should be. She left behind her hopes, with the rotted sculptures.

"HELGA!"

She rolled her eyes and groaned. "Bob."

"Do you know what day it is?"

She bit off the smart remark. He was making an effort, she told herself, and that was something. Fourteen had brought that. Fourteen and Miriam's DUI and the on surge of cell phones. Fourteen had been her worst year yet.

"The first day of the rest of our lives?" She was who she was. But she did smile at him, and for her it was the effort of the day.

"No, Helga, it's your birthday. And the day Pataki Phones opens. It's going to be big, girl. It's going to be perfect."

"My birthday, or Pataki Phones?"

"Both."

She didn't hide the eye roll. Or the sigh. He looked overexcited. And an overexcited Bob, wasn't one she was to keen on. His efforts of reconnecting and developing a healthy relationship with her, tended to be over the top and not worth the pain.

But he was trying, she repeated.

"What is it you're doing?"

He grinned. "Party."

"No." She turned to flee but his sigh made her turn back. "What kind? And isn't it kind of late to be doing one for today?"

"Friday or Saturday. It's a school night after all. I figured, Miriam and I would do the family thing with you tonight and then you could have all your little friends over, you know, the kid and the little guy and uhh," he bit his lip and she managed to hold back the laugh, he was trying so hard. "Alfred."

"Arnold."

"Arnold. Yeah. Him. And of course Phoebe."

"Of course. Bob, look, I applaud the effort. I do. But I'm not a party kind of girl."

"Then go out, on me, and have fun with a group. Do something fun, Helga. Act your age." His hand reached out to her, his hard fingers on her cheek pushing back the rain straight hair.

Who would have thought, that of both her parents Bob, would be the one to care so much.

"I do."

"No. You don't. You act like an adult. You're so…"

"Granny like?"

"No. Serious. You take everything to heart so much. You think you have to be so strong."

"I've had to be."

"I know, I'm sorry." She winced.

"Look, Bob. I don't feel like a heart to heart, let's save it for the family counselor, okay. Why pay him to make us talk if we do it ourselves."

For a minute she thought it was over. His hand was hanging silently at his thigh and his large familiar face was stoic. But his eyes were down. She knew the look. It was one she'd seen on her own face, when she decided two years ago, to tell Arnold the truth. To not run from her feelings. It was fear, disappointment and resignation.

She hoped it wasn't going to be the, I hoped to do better for you talk, or the I'm sorry I was a shitty father talk. It was to early and to hot for either.

"Look, Helga. I'm not perfect. And I know I can never take back those years. But I do you know, love you. And I want you to know, that if you need me. If you can't be strong. That I'm here."

She looked up at him, his down turned eyes and his now fidgeting hand and wanted to thank him. It was a sudden feeling, almost silly. But he cared. And she, for the first time, even with his new leaf, believed him.

"Bob-"

The crash was loud and Miriam's voice rang out with a shrill slur.

She rolled her eyes and ran for the door.

"Bye, Bob."

"Have a good day, Helga."

She thought maybe she would, even if her curves were silly and her hair was to straight. Even if nothing had really changed at all.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Helga."

She turned sideways at Phoebe. Her shorter friend was rescuing the back rimmed glasses from the precarious edge of her pert nose.

"Pheebs."

"Happy Birthday." From under the books in her arm was a blue wrapped box.

"You didn't have-"

"Best friends."

"Always."

"Don't open it yet. Save it, Helga. Please."

She smiled and pointed her face toward the sun. "You never have to ask me twice."

"Girls." She stuck out her tongue at Gerald. Some wounds, that did not even seem like wounds, ran deep.

"Sorry. Girl and Monstrosity, would you like a ride to school." Gerald grinned from the driver's side.

"GERALD!"

Helga laughed and nudged Phoebe with her shoulder, "It's cool. Tall Hair Boy and me we have a understanding."

She couldn't remember exactly when that happened. Probably somewhere between the day Arnold said never and the day Gerlad found her at the docks, her feet dangling in water and he didn't make fun of her.

"It's her birthday. Be nice."

"I'm always nice." He winked at Phoebe and smiled, his white teeth glittering in the sun at her. "Besides." He threw Helga a box from his seat. And she shoved it in her bag. "I never meet a monster empty handed." Gerald gave her a wink and nodded for her to get in.

"Look, Eighty-Eight. I'd like to get to school today, if possible." Helga said as she opened the back door.

"About that," His grin didn't fade, "Why go to school on your sweet sixteen?"

"Because the law requires-"

Gerald rolled his eyes as he interrupted his girlfriend, "I meant that hypothetically, Pheebs." Phoebe was sitting beside him now, her books lying neatly on the floorboard.

"Where else would I go?" Helga was still standing with the back door open, she debated now on getting in, something ached in her chest and she wondered, not for the first time today why everything felt the same and yet so different.

"Hey Helga." She spun quickly and glared.

"Don't sneak up on me, Arnold. I'm liable to have a heart attack." 

"What are you 50?" Gerald piped.

She was half around to tell him exactly how old she thought she was, when Arnold's had closed around her arm.

"Wh-" Helga set her glare back onto Arnold. Her mouth becoming a thin line.

"Happy Birthday." Arnold grinned and didn't move his fingers. 

"Thanks." And if she were any other type of girl, she might have blushed. His eyes caught hers and they held themselves there for a moment, as if something more was to be said or done and neither of them could remember the next move.

"Hey, man! What do you say?" Gerald's voice broke the moment.

They both spun toward Gerald. "What do you mean?"

Helga sighed and rolled her eyes again "He wants me to skip for my birthday, but as I was pointing out, I don't have anywhere to go. I have no money and well, what would my excuse be?"

"Fake notes, Pataki." Gerald drummed his hands against the steering wheel and seemed unharmed by Helga's best glare.

"What if Bob finds out. He's all up in my life now that he's all about the 'family'." Helga let her finger's make the air quotes.

Arnold laughed. "You make him sound like he's in the mafia."

"Maybe he is." She laughed.

"Whatever you two, we're skipping." Gerald reeved the car.

"Gerald, I really must disagree-" Phoebe bit her lip and Helga noticed she was about to panic.

"And we're kidnapping Phoebe." Gerald slung an arm around her pulled her close.

"Again the money-" Helga still hadn't got in the car, she was going to be the last one in.

"I'll pay. It's your birthday." Arnold's grin stuck in her mind for days afterward.

Slipping into the back seat she stuck her feet out the back window.

"You know how dangerous-" The girl in the front seat started.

"Phoebe, we love you, lighten up. It's her birthday. If she wants to lose both her feet in a tragic and horrible traffic accident. Then let her." Gerald pulled the car into the street and beside her Arnold hummed along with the radio.

She was almost certain, that today was going to be beyond what she expected.

"Where to?" Gerald started.

"What about the museum?" Phoebe suggested. 

"Some place fun." Arnold said.

Helga rolled her eyes. 

Arnold said leaning to close to her. "You know, if you continue to do that, your eyes could get stuck in the back of your head."

Helga inched away, her face felt warm. She tried to pull herself together when Gerald laughed. "And no one will ever marry you if you're footless and sightless." She kicked Gerald in the back of the head.

She chose to say nothing to Gerald and instead glanced out of the corner of her eye at Arnold. "Thanks, Arnold-O, I'll keep that in mind."

"Just looking out for your eye safety, I'd hate to have to be your seeing eye person again."

She looked at Arnold pointedly and rolled her eyes.

He laughed and she couldn't help but join him.

"Fine since obviously, I have to come up with all the good ideas we're going to the lake. And we're going to do something awesome." Gerald turned onto the highway.

"At the lake?"

Gerald sighed, "It's basically fun math. Anything done in a library is not fun. No matter what you're doing. Everything you do by the water is going to be fun."

"So lake plus a punch in the nose is fun, while library plus punch in the nose is less fun."

"Exactly. One, your at a library. So it's already painful. Two, a punch in the nose is step up from the boredom of library. Where as, even if you get punched in the lake you can be all like, shit that hurts, then you can look around and say, hell at least I'm at the lake."

"Library's are fun." Phoebe said.

Arnold and Helga shared a look and the rest of the car ride was silent.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The lake was empty despite the heat and the clear bright blue sky.

"Points, Gerald. You were right."

"So that's Pataki ten, Gerald 100."

"In your dreams." She rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue.

"It's okay, but library's are air conditioned." Phoebe looked at none of them.

"Good point, Pheebs." Arnold says but doesn't move from the towel.

"Of course, baby."

"Helga, want some ice cream?"

"Have I ever turned down ice cream, Arnold?"

"Not that I can remember, but well, it never hurts to ask."

He helps her up and they leave the silent couple behind.

"Never go against Phoebe and her library."

She nods and looks at her feet.

"What?"

She doesn't bother to look up. "What, what?"

"Why are you being quiet and sullen?"

"I'm not. I don't talk for like what a minute and suddenly I'm sullen?"

"You won't look at me."

She peers at him. "Better."

"Much. I can't go on without you looking at me."

She refuses to roll her eyes.

"What's with you anyway?"

"Besides feeling all deprived because for whatever reason you're not looking at me, unless I force you to."

"You're acting weird. Is it about Connie?"

"We broke up." This time it's Arnold that's not looking at her.

She winced. "Sorry."

"Don't be. It wasn't meant to last."

"Last week wasn't she like the love of your life?"

He shrugged at opened the door for her.

"What does that mean," she repeats his shrug. "is it code for, I'm a dork who falls in love way way to easily."

"Maybe. But then we can't all be like you and never fall in love with anyone.""I've been in love!"

"Heh, with who, Bobby? You guys fought all the time." He narrows his eyes at her as if he was trying to open her up.

"Fighting doesn't mean we can't love each other."

"One chocolate and one vanilla, double scoops please." He turned back to her. "Whatever, you didn't love him."

"I might have."

"But you didn't."

"Just like you didn't really love, Connie. Or Debra, or Lila. Or any of the other girls your so keen to jump head first into."

He gives her the lighter cone. "I fall in love easy."

"You don't fall in love at all. You want to love someone so badly that whenever you go out with someone you convince yourself that you're in love with them."

"You always pick someone you can't stand so that you have every reason to never fall in love with anyone."

"Whatever." Is the only think she can think to say. There's no point in saying that she's only ever really thought she could love him. She can still remember his thin lips and his wringing hands when he had to tell her that he just couldn't be in love with her. She focuses on her cone.

"Sorry."

"Yeah. Me too."

This time it's his eyes that roll. "Why are you sorry?"

"Because I'm picking a fight with you."

"No you're not."

"Yes I am."

"You're just being yourself and telling me what I want to know."

"No I'm not."

"What are you holding back now?"

She heads for the door and stands outside in the sun. Her face feels flushed and her lips are cold from the ice cream.

"Helga-"

"I think you fall in love because you want to love so badly. Because your parents married young and they loved each other so quickly and so much. But you're not them. And love doesn't have to come quick to be real or fast to be true. Sometimes it comes when it's suppose to and not a moment sooner or later."

"I think you don't let anyone in because you're afraid we're all going to break your heart."

"All of you?"

She almost wishes he meant himself.

"I mean guys. I'm sorry that I could-"

"I don't need a rejection again. I got you the first time. And we're better friends. Just like you said."

"We're more than friends. We're-"

"Yeah. The best of." She hopes her skin will grow dark and not red.

But she thinks she can already feel the burn.

\------------------------------------------------------

Later, she's walking the long way home. Her face still warm and her legs aching. She feels tired all over and happy.

Much to happy to be normal.

Dinner had been fun and she'd laughed with Phoebe about nothing and everything and she couldn't remember when she'd felt so at ease.

But the empty pit of her stomach tells her that she shouldn't think that everything's going to be perfect.

"Bob?" The house is to silent, the smell is still lingering in the hall but it's too dark.

"Helga? I'm in the kitchen."

"Happy Birthday!" Bob's holding a cake and candles and she gave him one of her rare smiles.

"Thanks."

"Yeah, well, I don't bake so it's store bought. But here."

She leans over and blows out the candles.

She wishes everything would be alright.

"Where's Miriam?"

"Open your presents."

She doesn't move. "Is she okay?"

"Olga sent you one from Alaska."

"Bob!"

"Helga, let's just enjoy you're birthday."

"I will once I know what's going on."

"Sit down. Please."

"Bob, you never say please."

He raise an eyebrow at her. "You know, your Mom has some problems."

"She's a freakin' drunk."

"Helga!"

"She is."

"She has some issues. And she needs help."

"Did you send her to rehab?"

"She wouldn't go." Bob's looking down again. "I asked and she said she didn't see the problem. And that we're all fine. But we're not. I know. I've tried to pretend for so long. But this morning. Last night. Every night."

"So where is she?"

"She went to stay with your Grandma Gene. I told her she need to sober up if she wanted to stay here. To stay married." He sucks off the icing form the candles. But his hands are shaking.

He'd be there for me if I needed him to be strong.

She figures she owes him that much too.

"So she'll get better. She'll learn that she wants us and she get help and it'll be better."

She cuts them a slice of cake but it tastes like salt and bitterness in her mouth.


	2. and i am nothing but ash

A day later and only hours smarter. There was sweat on her forehead and she'd only been awake for fifteen minutes.

"Helga?"

"What Bob?"

He pushes the door open slightly, his Pataki nose peering from the slit.

"I'm decent, Bob. Come on in."

"Your Principal called." He's still standing in the hall, his large frame shadowing the hallway wall. She sighs.

"I skipped with Phoebe, Gerald, and Arnold yesterday. They took me to a beach. For you know, my birthday."

"Okay." He hesitates at the door. She'd never seen Big Bob unsure. It made her stomach hurt. She knew he was trying, it was her motto as of late. Constantly reminding herself that Bob was trying to better himself, for her, for him. For the future, he had said. She wasn't sure what that meant in the broad scheme of things but, it made her wary. Afraid that one good move would cause something more horrible to happen to right itself.

"That's all?"

"I wish you would have told me, I mean what if something happened to you?"

"Nothing did, and I didn't say anything last night because of the news and stuff." Miriam gone was the shoe that dropped. She felt worse for not feeling as bad as she should.

"Right."

She threw herself back in the bed.

"Helga."

She noticed the faded yellow on the ceiling, her rebellious anti-pink time change, was peeling.

"Helga, I know this must be hard for you. But I promise, it'll be okay. I've called Olga. She's on her way."

The house, she noticed, still smelled of Miriam's fruit. Maybe she'd never learn to abide the taste or smell of bananas and oranges as long as she lived.

"I know."

When she turned her face to the wall he was still there.

"I love your Mother. You know that right?"

"Of course."

But like before, with Arnold and there was something hanging on her tongue that she knew should be said.

She couldn't think, for the life of her, what it was.

She just kept staring at the spot Bob was till she could make out the thin ghost of him, long after he'd gone.

Phoebe was riding in straight with Gerald today so she walked the ten blocks on her own. She tried not to notice how grey the city looked, with it's ashy sidewalks and earl colored buildings.

Grey like the sky and the hint of rain that loomed above her.

"Hey, you're going to need one of these if you're going to continue to walk."

"Thanks, Arnold." She took the offered umbrella and ignored how the pit of her stomach enlarged and she found it hard to breath. She fought back the sudden urge to cry.

"What?"

"Nothing." She gasped.

He didn't ask again but fell in step beside her. She watched his feet because his shoes were the light blue of his hat. Anything she thought, that wasn't grey would help the feeling.

"Tell me."

"Bob's thinking of divorcing Miriam."

Suddenly his shoes were gone and the rain began.

"I'm-"

"Don't. Okay. Sorry is such a stupid word. What have you got to be sorry for. Miriam's a drunk and Bob's trying to fix things and maybe love is stupid. Because I can't find it or get it and apparently even if I did, it wouldn't last." When she turns back to him he's got that look, that poor person who needs me to help them see glare in his eyes that makes her both sick and tired.

"Love isn't always like that."

She keeps walking. And for the rest of the way, she tries to forget the grey and the sort of sorrow that makes her legs feel heavy.

"It took you both ages to get here!" Phoebe's hands clasp on the books hard. "I thought you might skip again." Her voice is so low Helga has to lean to hear her.

"Don't worry. I won't make a habit of it." Arnold says from behind her.

"Actually I was thinking of taking the day off, a nice four day weekend sounds better than listening to Mrs. Plucker talk about the undying love of suicidal preteens." She doesn't think about the fourth grade or the kiss or how even if the story is clichéd and trite, the words were not.

"Helga, think of Bob." was Phoebe's admonishment. All she could see behind her blinking eyes, was the thin ghost of him hanging in her room. Of his slumped shoulders. Of the quietness that kept him still. He was nothing like Big Bob.

"I'm going to go. Bob knew about yesterday and he said it was fine. I'll just tell him I needed another day."

An hour later and she'd only made it as far as the park. She'd stopped under a tree with the umbrella and hoped the rain wouldn't come.

She didn't want to go home, with the empty house and the smell of sweet fruits. She didn't want the quiet or the knowing. Miriam was no longer there. No goodbye. No nothing.

And she wanted to muster up the anger. But all she could think off was the same old walls and the same pictures that hung there. That nothing had changed. Even when it had.

"Looked like you needed a friend."

"Then why'd you come." She gave him a half hearted smile.

"Listen, Pataki. Arnold and Phoebe are worried about you."

"But not enough to miss school again."

He shrugged and slunk down beside her. His shirt was still red and the number was still the same.

Everything was.

"And of course, me being me, doesn't need to be asked twice if it involves me not going to Mr. Dems class. God, that man is a bore."

"Yeah, well try Shakespeare's greatest fan. She romanticizes everything." Helga snorted and glanced at Gerald, then quickly turned her eyes toward the gloomy sky.

"So did you." His face was pointed up to. His adam's apple bobbed and it made her throat want to close up. How did he become one of her best friends. 

Instead she glared at Gerald. "I was like, nine. Bite me. I know better now."

"What what more do you really know?" Still he sat straining toward the sky.

She made a rough noise and leaned against the tree. "That love is a farce. And that nothing ever lasts and that people who make fools of themselves for love are simply fools. You might as well make a fool of yourself for cheese sticks for all it's worth."

"So you didn't love Arnold all that time."

Her eyes widened. It was one of their rules. The silence of that night. Of what she told him in a wayward moment of angst and heartbreak.

"No. I suppose it really wasn't. Not like I thought. Not like I think. Or something." She was never a rule abider either.

"How did you think?" She turned back to look at him and he was plucking a flower.

She imagined the never ending question. Does he love me, he does and he doesn't. On and on and on. Forever. It made her fist ball at her side.

"That being with him would make everything better. That he would make me better. That magically, I wouldn't care if Miriam drank or Olga was perfect or Bob was…I don't know. Bob. It isn't fair, you know, to pin that up on him. I wasn't in love with him then, for the right reasons. I loved him, because he was the first person in the whole world that was good to me. I worshiped him. And that isn't love. It's making him something he isn't." He was still plucking and she was still counting the question. But he's eyebrows raised. "Perfect. He isn't perfect. He's to nice at times. To kind. He takes everything so seriously. He's willing, sometimes, to do the right thing at the cost of himself. And he carries the whole worlds problems on his back, like it's his burden and no one else's. He falls in love so easily that if he ever thought he loved me, I 'd laugh at him. I don't think he knows anything about being really and truly in love with someone. Because he's always loved everyone."

She smashed the crumpled petals between her fingers and Gerald spun the stem.

"Yeah. You never really loved him. Because you never really knew him. Now you do."

"We've been friends for years, it was bound to happen sooner or later."

"I told him the same thing."

He handed her the last petal on the flower. It had landed on he loves you.

"You're insane, Gerald-O."

"What did you expect, Pataki. He spends most days around you. He talks to you about stuff, we as guys, do not. Don't roll your eyes. Look no one could be closer than Arnold and me. He's my best friend. But I'm not… I don't get the emotional stuff. Not like you. He can tell you about his mom and dad and you get it. Because hell your family dynamic is as screwed up as his. I mean his Grandma and Grandpa love him and so do the boarders. But the parents thing. You get. I don't. He needs that."

She shoved her hand in her pocket, she told herself it was nothing that she left the petal there.

"Doesn't mean anything, so we talk, we're friends. Phoebe's my best friend. You're even my friend. It doesn't mean I've fallen in love with you. Or Phoebe for that matter."

"That's because you know you could never handle a guy like me."

"I think what you mean, is that you could never handle a woman like me." She elbows him to prove her point. And above them, the sun peers from behind the clouds.

"What are two doing?"

"Plotting the downfall of the world." She shields her eyes from the sun.

"Phoebe was wondering if you were going to still pick her up before work."

"Shit." He scrambles for his phone and waves goodbye. Helga flips him off, just for fun.

"Nice."

"I'm not nice, Arnold-O."

"I wouldn't want you to be." He helps her up, his hand is warm and she feels wounded for no reason at all.

"What are you doing here? Don't you have science, right about now?"

"I wanted to see you."

She puts her hands in her pocket and watches the clouds burn away.

"How do I look?"

"Good."

"What is it you really want?"

"To make sure your-"

She pinches the petal in her pocket and shakes her head. "I'm fine. People divorce all the time. Whatever."

"Can I hug you?"

She pulls her eyes from the sky to stare at him. "What?"

He touches her cheek, the back of his fingers running down the round of her face. "Hug. You always ask me what gives me the idea to touch you. I just want permission first."

"I don't need a hug."

"Maybe I do." His fingers, both rough and young, clasp behind her neck and pull her toward him.

She doesn't pull away. "Fine. But just because you need one."

She tells herself later that the heat on her skin was from the newly bright sun, she ignores that it's only where he touched her that burns.

"Baby Sister!"

"Olga." She smells like lilacs and the smudge of her eyes let's Helga know that she's done her crying.

"How are you feeling?"

"Better if people would stop asking." She notices the that the pictures have been taken off the wall. "Where's Bob?"

"He's in the den. He's…"

"Not doing good. I know. What happened to the pictures."

"I think Daddy was looking to redecorate or something."

Helga shakes her head. "So Miriam's not coming back?"

"She's upset right now, thinks Daddy is abandoning her. She's unhappy."

"She's still drinking."

Olga doesn't have to answer. And Helga didn't really need to ask, but she's tired of the silent gaps, the pauses and the sense of nagging at what they're not saying. She'd rather fill it with needlessness and chatter than hear the swirling thoughts in her own head.

"Bob?"

He's watching the television on mute. "Yeah."

She wipes her hands on her knees and sits beside him. "Help me?" When he looks at her, she notices the slope of his nose and the wrinkles hanging at side of his face. Suddenly she struck with the thought of how old he is, compared to how she remembers him. She wants to throw up. "I noticed that my ceiling was peeling. I was thinking maybe you and I could, I don't know, repaint it or something. Dr. Dean has been after us to something father/daughter together."

"Really?"

"Really." She says. Because she afraid that everything will always be the same way.

She's lonely.

Maybe, she thinks, that isn't right. Maybe it's an ache. A look in the mirror and she's older in her eyes but the same in her face.

"Well…"

She doesn't grin. Helga G. Pataki doesn't grin or giggle but the ends of her lips fall upward and she looks at him side long.

"It's perfect, Bob."

"It really is, isn't it."

It reminds her of postcard she saw once, an endless field, nothing standing in the air or ground by possibilities. The sun never set on the green and it never rose but stayed forever in the light warm afternoon.

She crumples the pink ribbon harder in her pocket.

"I never took you for a green sort of person, Helga. Always with that pink bow and that pink dress, we must have washed it every night. I remember when it finally gave out, fifth grade, right, and you didn't cry but you looked so sad."

"And somehow, there was another one, just like it the next day."

"I would have given you anything." She doesn't look at him, it's enough to hear all the other confessions in those words. As if she were Miriam, young and proud and the future that laid before them. As if she were Grandma and Grandpa Pataki, hard eyed and mean, as if maybe she were Bob himself, and he was just getting around to see it wasn't the thing (that dress or the ring that shined on her mother's finger, or that old house that smelled of soup and lined faces) but the meaning. (iloveyou and iloveyou and iloveyou. lovemetoo.).

"Thank you." It's so little but it's all she's really got to give.

"Let's have dinner." She turns to him then, they were trying. But dinner was as silent as always, off white lights and men with elbows at other's faces. It was a Pataki thing.

"Okay. We can order some Thai."

"No, let's cook. I know Olga's the cook but I don't know, something home cooked could work for us."

She nods because sometimes, almost always, it's all she can think to say to Bob.

The meatloaf is burnt and a despairing shade of black. But they're sitting like a picture at the dinner table. She eats because he looks so hopeful and tired.

But she swallows each bite hard and heavy.

"Are you dating him?"

She's surprised she doesn't choke.

"Who?" But Bob's eyes are open and he's always known something, even when he couldn't see color.

"Arnold. I see him here all the time. Didn't he bring you that book, the fancy one?"

"He's a friend." She leaves it at that and stirs the watery potatoes.


End file.
